What to Upgrade First at TH14 in COC 2026

That's the order. Now for why it works.

Town Hall 14 is where a lot of accounts stall. The upgrades get long, the costs jump, and the Pet House adds a whole new queue that competes for dark elixir.

Most guides online were written before two big changes. The Town Hall weapon lost its levels, and wall rings stopped needing a builder. Both change the plan.

I checked Supercell's August 2025 notice, and it's the biggest change for this town hall.

Supercell removed Town Hall weapon levels from Town Hall 12, 13, 14 and 15. The notice says your weapon is now at max power whatever level it had before. The reason given was that these levels were slowing down midgame progression.

For you, that means one less upgrade. The Giga Inferno at Town Hall 14 is already as strong as it gets.

The full notice on Supercell's site also reworked Spring Traps and added levels for them from Town Hall 11.

The second change came in August 2026. Wall rings no longer require a free builder.

The lab is one queue, and it's the slowest one in the game.

Every troop, spell and siege level you want at Town Hall 14 waits for the Laboratory upgrade. Until it finishes, your army is stuck at Town Hall 13 strength.

So start the lab the day you upgrade. Then keep it busy every single hour after that.

Pick research by what you attack with. Your main war troop comes first, then your main spells, then your siege machine. Leave troops you never train for last, or skip them.

The Lab Assistant in the Helper Hut speeds research up, so assign him to whatever's running.

An idle lab for a day is a day you never get back.

Pets are the headline of Town Hall 14. I read the original Town Hall 14 patch notes to see how they unlock, and the structure is simple.

The Pet House is the building where you upgrade pets and assign them to heroes. According to the notes, each Pet House level unlocks a new pet:

• Level 1: L.A.S.S.I
• Level 2: Electro Owl
• Level 3: Mighty Yak
• Level 4: Unicorn

That's why it sits so high on the list. A pet makes one hero stronger in every attack, and you can't get the second pet without upgrading the house.

The original Town Hall 14 patch notes list every new level that came with it.

Don't level every pet evenly. Level the pet that follows your main hero.

L.A.S.S.I is a common first pick for the Barbarian King or Archer Queen in a ground attack. Electro Owl is a common pick for the Grand Warden. Mighty Yak breaks walls, which helps a ground hero path through a base.

Those are starting points, not rules. Your own army decides.

Our pet tier list for every hero goes through each pairing in detail.

One warning. Pets cost dark elixir, and so do heroes. You can't max both at once. Keep your main hero's pet close to the hero's level, and put everything else into the hero.

Heroes carry more attacks than any other upgrade. That's why they come right after the lab and the Pet House.

The catch is the time. A hero that's upgrading can't fight. Start them all at once and you'll spend weeks attacking without your best units.

So stagger them. Upgrade the hero you rely on most, and keep at least your best war hero available on war days.

The Hero Hall holds every hero in one building now, with slots for attack and defense. It doesn't change the principle. Level the heroes you attack with.

If you're not sure which army to build around, read our TH14 attack strategy guide first. The army you pick decides which hero matters most.

After heroes, go to the buildings that grow your army.

The Clan Castle adds space for your clan's troops and spells. The army camps add housing space. Both help every attack you make from the moment they finish.

That's the key difference from defenses. A defense level helps against some attacks. A bigger army helps on all of them.

The spell factories come next if they have new levels. Barracks come last, and only if a new level unlocks a troop you'll actually use.

This part of the list is short. Get it done in the first few weeks, and your attacks will feel stronger long before your base does.

Town Hall 14 lets you upgrade your Builder's Huts. It's easy to skip them, and that's a mistake.

The patch notes say a Builder's Hut above level 2 gets a turret that shoots invading enemies. It has a range of six tiles, hits one target at a time and targets both ground and air.

Every upgraded hut becomes a small defense spread around your base. They don't stop an army alone. They do pick off the troops that wander to the edges.

The notes also say that at Town Hall 14 your builders no longer hide. They try to repair nearby defenses during a battle.

Upgrade huts after your offense buildings, and before the late levels of your older defenses.

Now the long list. Here's a simple way to order it.

First, defenses that damage groups. Splash damage and air defenses hurt whole armies, not single troops.

Second, defenses in your core. They fight in every attack that reaches the middle, so their levels count more often.

Third, defenses near the edge. They matter, but attackers can often path around them.

Traps sit in between. They're cheap and quick, so use them to fill a builder that would otherwise be idle.

The tiebreaker is your war log. If the same defense falls first in attack after attack, it's either underleveled or in the wrong place.

Never leave a builder idle waiting for the perfect upgrade. Start the next best one.

Town Hall 14 added 25 new wall pieces, according to the patch notes. That's a lot of wall.

The good news is that walls got easier this year. Since the August 2026 update, wall rings don't need a free builder. You can use a ring on a wall even while every builder is busy.

So use rings the moment you get them. There's no trade off anymore.

For gold, keep walls as your overflow. When your storages are nearly full and every builder is working, spend the extra gold on walls rather than letting it cap.

Don't put walls ahead of offense. A higher wall won't three star anything.

Town Hall 14 is where dark elixir gets tight, because pets join heroes and dark troops as a third drain.

Here's a simple split. Heroes first, since they affect every attack. Then the pet on your main hero. Dark troops only if they're the core of your army.

If you run a ground army with dark troops at its heart, those troops can jump the queue. If you run an air army, they can wait.

Watch your storage. If it keeps filling to the cap, you're not spending fast enough. Start the next hero or pet upgrade before it tops out.

Spread thin, dark elixir finishes nothing. Focused, it finishes one hero at a time.

Not before your heroes and main army are close to Town Hall 14's limits.

Town Hall 15 raises every cap again. Your heroes arrive at the same levels they left with, so any gap you carry up gets bigger, not smaller.

A rushed account faces stronger bases with a weaker army. That's the slowest way to progress, even though it feels fast.

Defenses can lag a little. Offense shouldn't.

When you do move up, our TH15 upgrade priority guide picks up where this one ends.

Here's the first month in four steps.

Week one. Start the Laboratory and the Pet House. Use any wall ring you have.

Week two. Your main hero, the Clan Castle and the army camps.

Week three. Your second hero, the spell factories and your first Builder's Hut upgrades.

Week four. Splash and air defenses, then the rest in your war log's order.

The lab never stops. The Pet House unlocks the next pet as soon as you can afford it.

While the builders work, a better layout costs nothing. Browse Town Hall 14 layouts in our base library and swap in one built for the defenses you have now.